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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Dwayne Benjamin; Boriana Miloucheva; Natalia Vigezzi |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the opportunity cost of pursuing a PhD by tracing the earnings trajectories of graduate students from undergraduate study through doctoral training and into the labour market. Using linked Canadian administrative and census data, we compare PhD graduates to those who complete a master’s degree, to professional degree holders, and to individuals who enter but do not complete a PhD. We find that PhD graduates earn significantly less than their peers early in their careers due to delayed labour market entry. Over time, their earnings recover and eventually surpass those of master’s graduates - but primarily among those who obtain academic positions and remain employed later in life. This "double premium" reflects both higher earnings conditional on full-time academic employment and longer labour force attachment. By contrast, the most substantial penalties accrue to non-completers who withdraw late from PhD programs. Finally, we document worsening outcomes for recent PhD graduates, driven largely by declining rates of academic employment. These findings highlight the central role of career timing, labour force attachment, and access to academic positions in shaping the economic returns to doctoral education. |
| Keywords: | PhD education; Returns to education; Human capital; Labour market outcomes; Lifecycle earnings; Administrative data |
| JEL: | I26 J24 I23 |
| Date: | 2025–07–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-802 |
| By: | García-Suaza, Andres; Caiza-Guamán, Pamela; Sarango-Iturralde, Alexander; Romero-Torres, Bernardo; Buitrago, Catalina |
| Abstract: | The green transition represents one of the most significant transformational forces in the labor market in the coming years. This paper analyzes the incidence of green jobs in four Latin American countries using information from job vacancy data. The results reveal a low incidence of demand for jobs with green potential or for new and emerging occupations related to the green transition. Such occupations are characterized by requiring high levels of education and offer a significant wage premium. These results highlight the main challenge of the green transition, which lies in the need to implement training processes, while revealing opportunities for the creation of high-quality jobs in the region. |
| Keywords: | Labor demand, green jobs, green transition, climate change, skills |
| JEL: | J24 J62 Q52 Q58 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1625 |
| By: | Martin Ruckes; Konrad O. Stahl |
| Abstract: | When workers’ skills can only be revealed by matches into tasks, and then only via the productivity of their teams, productivity-improving internal re-matching should improve on skill information to the external market. We show that this is not necessarily so. Information generated in more productive firms may become garbled, even overturning productivity advantages generated in the internal market. We derive this and other results within a parsimonious parametric model in which we transfer and adapt the horizontal differentiation model known from the IO literature to a labor market characterized by symmetric imperfect information about the typical worker’s skills. Information about these skills is revealed only indirectly via the productivity of the teams in which the workers are active. Firms as teams vary in size, and technology reflected in their structure of tasks from specialized to diversified. Frictionless re-matching within the internal labor market improves on the team’s productivity. Misalignment between the distribution of skills and that of tasks can be removed only by external labor market actions, constrained by informational frictions. In part 1 of this paper, we analyze internal market equilibrium. For external market activities, we assume that firms can realize their imperfectly informed desired demand from a supply in which skills are revealed perfectly. In part 2, we realistically consider labor supply in the external market as in part furnished by separations, and structured by signals involving the typical worker’s employment history. We demonstrate generic opposite effects of internal on external market activities. In the internal market, constrained efficient re-matching yields the average productivity of firms to increase in size and diversity of structure. External market activity improves on firms’ expected productivity, but the strength of improvement decreases in firm size and diversity of structure: The more internal re-matching leads to leftward skewness in the distribution of firms towards higher productivity, the less informative is the specification of desired demand (and, as we show in part 2: in the supply) in the external market, which may overturn internal market effects. |
| Keywords: | Internal Labor Markets, Horizontal Differentiation of Labor and Tasks, Imperfect Information, Employment History |
| JEL: | J21 J23 J62 L23 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_679v2 |
| By: | Sarah Bernhard; Sandra Bohmann; Susann Fiedler; Maximilian Kasy; Jürgen Schupp; Frederik Schwerter |
| Abstract: | How does basic income (a regular, unconditional, guaranteed cash transfer) impact labor supply? We show that in search models of the labor market with income effects, this impact is theoretically ambiguous: Employment and job durations might increase or decrease, match surplus might be shifted to workers or employers, and worker surplus might be reallocated between wages and job amenities. We thus turn to empirical evidence to study this impact. We conducted a pre-registered RCT in Germany, starting 2021, where recipients received 1200 Euro/month for three years. We draw on both administrative and survey data, and find no extensive margin (employment) response, and no impact on on job transitions from either non-employment or employment. We do find a small statistically insignificant intensive margin shift to part-time employment, which implies an excess burden (reduction of government revenues) of ca 7.5% of the transfer. We furthermore observe a small increase of enrollment in training or education. |
| Keywords: | basic income, randomized controlled trial, labor supply |
| JEL: | I38 J22 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11940 |
| By: | Maor Milgrom |
| Abstract: | It is well established that job displacement leads to large and persistent earnings losses, but the reasons for these long-term losses remain unclear. A leading theory ties earnings losses to the demand laid-off workers face for their industry-specific human capital, yet evidence in support of this theory is lacking. This paper proposes a novel method for estimating the demand for workers’ industry-specific skills. I proxy for the worker’s skill set with her occupation, and measure how industry-specific her occupation is by the share of the occupation that is employed in her industry. The demand for the worker’s industry-specific skills is then estimated by the industry growth rate. Applying this measure, I test for heterogeneity in the costs of displacement for manufacturing workers in Israel. I show that workers laid off from shrinking industries who held highly industry-specific occupations suffer from substantially greater earnings losses, as predicted by the theory. Within shrinking industries, these workers experience earnings losses that are 76% higher than workers in occupations with low industry-specificity. These losses in earnings are driven by a persistent effect on employment, as workers with industry-specific occupations are 2.5 times more likely to exit the labor market in the years following displacement. The findings are robust to within-firm analysis, indicating that these results are not explained by a loss of firm wage premiums. |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J63 J65 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11950 |
| By: | Michael D. Bates; Andrew C. Johnston |
| Abstract: | Theoretical rationales for employer-provided pensions often focus on their ability to increase employee effort and selectively retain quality workers. We test these hypotheses using rich administrative data on public school teachers around the pension-eligibility threshold. When teachers cross the threshold, their effective compensation drops by over 50 percent of salary due to sharply reduced pension accrual rates. Standard economic models predict this compensation reduction should decrease teacher effort and output, yet we observe no such decline. This suggests that yearly pension accruals near retirement do not meaningfully increase effort. Similarly, if pensions selectively retained better teachers, we would expect average teacher quality to decline when the retentive incentive disappears at the threshold. Instead, we find no change in the composition of teacher quality, suggesting pensions do not selectively retain higher-performing workers in late career. |
| JEL: | H55 I21 J33 J45 M52 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33986 |
| By: | Ufuk Akcigit; Harun Alp; Jeremy Pearce; Marta Prato |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the symbiotic relationship between transformative entrepreneurs and inventors, which is crucial for economic growth. We utilize microdata from Denmark to demonstrate that while the relationship between IQ and general entrepreneurship tends to be negative, it is strongly positive among transformative entrepreneurs. Transformative entrepreneurs, often with higher IQ and education levels, significantly drive R&D and business growth, thereby providing substantial opportunities for inventors. In contrast, average entrepreneurs are more influenced by their family's entrepreneurship background. Our economic model links these dynamics to overall economic progress, highlighting how higher education influences career paths in entrepreneurship and invention. We identify talent misallocation caused by unequal education access, particularly affecting lower-income families. Our findings indicate the most effective policies strengthen the interplay between higher education, innovation, and entrepreneurship to foster transformative businesses and achieve long-run economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; R&D Policy; Innovation; IQ; Endogenous Growth |
| JEL: | O31 O38 O47 J24 |
| Date: | 2025–06–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgif:1410 |
| By: | Vera-Cossio, Diego A.; Bosch, Mariano; Leganza, Jonathan M; Mojica Uruena, Tatiana; Oliveri, María Laura |
| Abstract: | We study how public pensions impact lifecycle labor supply decisions. Our analysis centers on pension eligibility rules in Ecuador. We first use administrative data to document and unpack retirement spikes at eligibility ages. Next, we use survey data and regression discontinuity to investigate whether eligibility rules influence earlier-in-life decisions about when to work formally versus informally. We find discontinuous increases in transitions to formal employment at 50, consistent with forward-looking people timing employment to minimize social security contributions while maintaining benefit eligibility. Evidence suggests that small and family firms, where employees and employers may readily coordinate, help facilitate these transitions. |
| JEL: | H55 J26 J46 O12 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14165 |
| By: | Abdoulaye Ndiaye (New York University); Zhixiu Yu (Louisiana State University) |
| Abstract: | Raising the retirement age is a common policy response when social security schemes face fiscal pressures. We develop and estimate a dynamic life cycle model to study optimal retirement and tax policy when individuals face health shocks and income risk and make endogenous retirement decisions. The model incorporates key features of Social Security, Medicare, income taxation, and savings incentives and distinguishes three channels through which health affects retirement: nonconvexities in labor supply due to health-dependent fixed costs of working, earnings reductions, and mortality risk. We estimate our model to match US microdata and show that labor supply nonconvexities play a dominant role in driving early retirement, making rigid increases in the retirement age welfare reducing. In contrast, more flexible policies, such as increasing the dependence of Social Security benefits on the claiming age, can improve welfare and pay for themselves with a fiscal surplus. We map a range of policy reforms to their marginal values of public funds (MVPFs), showing that certain incentives to delay claiming offer MVPFs of infinity while broad-based retirement age increases have negative willingness-to-pay. These findings offer novel retirement policy prescriptions and challenge the prevailing emphasis on raising the retirement age. |
| Keywords: | dynamic models, Medicare, income taxation, savings, Labor Supply, marginal value of public funds, MVPF, willingness to pay |
| JEL: | J26 H55 H21 I10 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2025-005 |
| By: | Bolt, U.; French, E.; Warrier, V.; Yang, Q.; Zhang, W. |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how genetic endowments influence lifetime earnings using a dynamic life cycle model and longitudinal data from a cohort tracked from birth to retirement. We examine genetic impacts on skill formation as well as choices of parental investments, educational attainment, and occupation. A one standard deviation increase in the polygenic score for educational attainment raises lifetime earnings by 18.9%. Although part of this effect is due to genetic endowments impacting skill formation, the majority is due to genetic endowments impacting choices. Extending our analysis to include polygenic scores for additional traits reveals other channels through which they operate. Furthermore, our estimates show that genetic endowments and investments are substitutes in the production of earnings during early childhood but are complements later in life, highlighting the crucial importance of early-life interventions to effectively mitigate genetic inequalities. |
| Keywords: | Polygenic Scores, Educational Attainment, Life Time Earning, Cognitive Skills |
| JEL: | I24 J24 C38 |
| Date: | 2025–07–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2547 |
| By: | Lionel Wilner; Philippe Choné |
| Abstract: | To empirically assess how physicians respond to financial incentives, we leverage a quasi-natural experiment in France where most GPs' fees are regulated. In 2017, a wide-scale regulatory change caused the price of a visit to increase from €23 to €25. Relying on granular claims data covering the universe of patients, doctors, and visits, we show that physician activity grew by nearly 9% after the price increase, yielding a unitary price elasticity of healthcare provision. The number of distinct patients examined increased substantially, while the provision of medical services per patient hardly changed, resulting in a slight increase in physicians' number of days worked. Drug prescription per patient is also shown to decrease, suggesting that the policy was cost-effective and enhanced access to healthcare, with limited adverse effects. Early-career physicians responded strongly to these financial incentives, while later-career physicians hardly changed their labor supply behavior. |
| Keywords: | physician labor supply, financial incentives, claims data, access to healthcare, medical spending |
| JEL: | I11 I18 J44 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11947 |
| By: | Patrick Bayer (Duke University); Kerwin Kofi Charles (Yale University); Ellora Derenoncourt (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | In this chapter, we introduce a new framework for studying the evolution of racial inequality in the labor market. The framework encompasses two broad forces – distributional and positional – that affect labor market gaps by racial and ethnic identity over time. We provide long-run results on the evolution of Black-White earnings gaps, including new results for Black and White women, and we review the evidence on historical factors affecting racial gaps. We then provide new results on racial gaps among other groups in the U.S. and discuss the evidence on racial gaps outside the U.S. We then discuss the role of prejudice-based discrimination in driving racial gaps, particularly in the post-civil-rights era, a period when such discrimination has been thought to play a declining role in racial inequality. We describe forces that can amplify existing discrimination, such as monopsony and workers’ perceptions of prejudice in the economy, and we discuss recent literature directly measuring discrimination through expanded audit studies and quasi-experimental variation. We conclude with a discussion of existing and new frontiers on race in the labor market, including stratification, reformulations of prejudice, and understanding the way race has shaped purportedly race-neutral institutions throughout the economy. |
| Keywords: | Race, labor markets, inequality |
| JEL: | J15 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cepsud:343 |
| By: | Christoph Becker; Dietmar Fehr; Hannes Rau; Stefan T. Trautmann; Yilong Xu |
| Abstract: | How do different characteristics of pay-for-performance schemes affect fairness perceptions? In two studies, we systematically consider three major classes of incentive schemes: continuous piece rate incentives, discrete bonus schemes, and tournament incentives. We find that pay inequality has a strong negative effect on perceived fairness. Controlling for pay inequality, people consider piece rate schemes fairer than those with a discrete bonus and a tournament design in particular. Adding performance-dependent resource advantages or handicaps negatively influences perceived fairness. We find that procedural fairness judgments are an important factor influencing overall judgments and demonstrate in a third study that the latter have relevant behavioral consequences. |
| Keywords: | incentives, merit, contract design, fairness, inequality |
| JEL: | C90 D63 J31 J41 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11943 |
| By: | Kyle Herkenhoff; Josh Lerner; Gordon M. Phillips; Francisca Rebelo; Benjamin Sampson |
| Abstract: | We measure the real effects of private equity buyouts on worker outcomes by building a new database that links transactions to matched employer-employee data in the United States. To guide our empirical analysis, we derive testable implications from three theories in which private equity managers alter worker outcomes: (1) exertion of monopsony power in concentrated markets, (2) breach of implicit contracts with targeted groups of workers, including managers and top earners, and (3) efficient reallocation of workers across plants. We do not find any evidence that private equity-backed firms vary wages and employment based on local labor market power proxies. Wage losses are also very similar for managers and top earners. Instead, we find strong evidence that private equity managers downsize less productive plants relative to productive plants while simultaneously reallocating high-wage workers to more productive plants. We conclude that post-buyout employment and wage dynamics are consistent with professional investors providing incentives to increase productivity and monitor the companies in which they invest. |
| Keywords: | Private equity, employment, wages, monopsony, market power, productivity |
| JEL: | G20 G34 L1 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:25-37 |
| By: | Paola Bertoli; Veronica Grembi |
| Abstract: | In many countries, public healthcare systems are facing the unprecedented challenge of attracting new physicians and retaining existing physicians. Given that the role of noneconomic factors in responding to such a challenge is as important as the role played by economic factors, we use outbreaks of healthcare scandals from 2000 to 2020 in approximately 100 Italian provinces to address the impact of perceived corruption on the density of public hospital physicians. The outbreak of a scandal is associated with a 3.6% decrease in the presence of public hospital physicians. The effect is explained mainly by so-called supply-side drivers, such as ethical concerns (i.e., a scandal related to a malpractice case), a lack of motivation in the workplace, concerns about the high salience of the scandal (e.g., more media coverage), and more outside options. Demand-side drivers, such as a lower level of trust on the patient side, which affects the patient distribution and, indirectly, the physician distribution, do not seem to play a crucial role within the institutional setting analyzed. Our results are robust to different staggered DID estimators, the inclusion of trends to capture potential time-varying attitudes toward corrupt behaviors, and the inclusion of variables that are expected to affect both the density of public hospital physicians and the occurrence of scandals. Healthcare scandals do not seem to affect the density of other types of civil servants, such as teachers or firefighters. |
| Keywords: | Healthcare, Corruption, Staggered Diff-in-Diff, Physicians' Supply |
| JEL: | D7 I19 J24 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp25243 |
| By: | Mingjian Li |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) led to strategic income reductions to qualify for coverage. Using monthly data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (2013 to 2019) and a regression discontinuity design, this paper finds that childless households in expansion states with earnings just above the eligibility threshold reduced their lowest monthly earnings by 39 percentage points of the Federal Poverty Level (roughly 700 dollars for a two-person household) relative to those just below. The effect intensified as the mandate penalty increased and diminished after its repeal. Evidence suggests earnings adjustments along both intensive and extensive margins. The paper reinforces the validity of using the lowest monthly earning to identify Medicaid eligibility and provides the first evidence of a substantial labor supply response to the ACA |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2506.12976 |
| By: | Daniel Herbst |
| Abstract: | For workers facing uncertain output, fixed-wage contracts provide implicit insurance compared to self-employment or performance-based pay. But like any insurance product, these contracts are prone to market distortions through moral hazard and adverse selection. Using a model of wage contracts under asymmetric information, I show how these distortions can be identified as potential outcomes in a marginal treatment effects (MTE) framework. I apply this framework to a field experiment in which data-entry workers are offered a choice between a randomized fixed hourly wage and a piece rate. Using experimental wage offers as an instrument for hourly wage take-up, I find evidence of both moral hazard and adverse selection. Hourly wage contracts reduce worker productivity by an estimated 6.32 percent relative to the mean. Meanwhile, a 10 percent increase in the hourly wage offer attracts a marginal worker whose productivity is higher by 1.44 percent of mean worker output. Using semi-parametric MTE estimation, I calculate the welfare loss associated with asymmetric information and the marginal values of public funds (MVPFs) for a range of wage-based subsidy and tax policies. My estimates suggest that a 14-percent tax on performance-based pay can efficiently raise government revenue by mitigating adverse selection into fixed-wage contracts. |
| Keywords: | compensation structure, wage insurance, performance pay, adverse selection, moral hazard, information asymmetries, marginal treatment effects |
| JEL: | J33 J38 M52 D82 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11946 |
| By: | Federico Fabio Frattini; Francesco Vona; Filippo Bontadini; Italo Colantone |
| Abstract: | What are the job multipliers of the green industrialization? We tackle this question within EU regions over the period 2003-2017, building a novel measure of green manufacturing penetration that combines green production and regional employment data. We estimate local job multipliers of green penetration in a long-difference model, using a shift-share instrument that exploits plausibly exogenous changes in non-EU green innovation. We find that a 3-years change in green penetration per worker increases the employment-to-active population ratio by 0.11 pp. The effect is: persistent both in manufacturing and outside manufacturing; halved by agglomeration effects that increase the labour market tightness; stronger for workers with high and low-education; and present also in regions specialized in polluting industries. When focusing on large shocks in a staggered DiD design, we find ten times larger effects, particularly in earlier periods. |
| Keywords: | green industrialisation, local job multipliers, employment effects of the green transition, shift-share IV design, difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | J21 O14 R11 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11939 |
| By: | Ronak Maheshwari ((corresponding author) Ph.D. Research Scholar, Madras School of Economics, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 600025); Brinda Viswanathan (Professor, Madras School of Economics, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 600025) |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes the covariates of the time spent on education and leisure of the youth who are Not in Employment, Education, or Training focusing (NEET). Based on the 2019 Time Use Survey for youth in India the study estimates a two-stage control function to examine the covariates that explain the share of time spent on learning among NEET after accounting for the potential endogeneity of NEET status. The first stage probit model predicts the probability of NEET using average income of, and regional unemployment rate among adults (30-65 years) aggregated by state, district, and education level from PLFS (2018-19) as instruments. The generalized residuals (Inverse Mills Ratio) are then included as an explanatory variable in the second stage GLM with a logit link and binomial family. The selection coefficient for men and women have opposing signs, suggesting the difference in unobserved characteristics that drive men and women into NEET to explain the gender differentials in time-use patterns in India. The share of time spent on learning among NEET youth is significantly positively associated with better education, urban residence, access to some type of labor-saving technologies in their homes, and residing in Northern India, for both males and females. The study highlights the heterogeneity within NEET youth and underscores the need for policies tailored to their specific characteristics. |
| Keywords: | NEET, Youth Unemployment, Time-Use |
| JEL: | I23 J24 J64 P36 |
| Date: | 2025–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2025-280 |
| By: | Hylke Dijkstra; Konstantin M. Wacker (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyse how robotisation is associated with industry output and its production inputs. We therefore link data on employment, robotisation and input-output relations for 15 manufacturing industries across 35 countries. Analysing the decade prior to 2018, we show that robotising industries experience increases in output and approximately equiproportional increases in value added, employment, domestic intermediate inputs and foreign intermediate inputs. Owing to this equiproportionality, robotising industries do not see a significant change in their domestic input ratios (value added plus domestic intermediates relative to total inputs). Our empirical results document that robotising industries are thriving in terms of output generation, that those thriving industries are internationally well integrated, and that their output expansion is associated with employment generation. Industries that use an increasing share of domestic production inputs generally experience less favourable output and employment developments, although this association is imprecisely estimated. |
| Keywords: | Robots, reshoring, employment, labour, production location, global value chains, GVCs |
| JEL: | E23 J23 O30 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wii:wpaper:267 |
| By: | Vandenberghe, Vincent |
| Abstract: | The primary policy response to population ageing in advanced economies has been to raise the mandatory retirement age. However, these policies have reignited calls for differentiated retirement ages that take into account variations in work intensity. This paper utilises microdata to examine the relevance and feasibility of this concept in Europe. It first quantifies career arduousness using SHARE wave 7 retrospective ISCO4-digit data on careers in combination with US O*NET working conditions data. Then, using SHARE follow-up data collecting (bad)health and death information about wave 7 respondents, it estimates (healthy) life expectancy by career arduousness decile, combining econometrics and life table methods. Findings reveal a life expectancy gap between the least and most arduous careers of 4 to 4.2 years. Healthy life expectancy differences are slightly larger, ranging from 6.9 to 9.1 years. Also, women's healthy life expectancy seems to be somewhat more impacted by arduousness. |
| Keywords: | Ageing, Career arduousness, (Healthy) life expectancy, Retirement Policy |
| JEL: | J14 I1 J26 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1627 |
| By: | Andrew Caplin (New York University); Soeren Leth-Petersen (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Christopher Tonetti (Stanford Graduate School of Business) |
| Abstract: | Models of female labor supply routinely assume that women have accurate expectations about post-birth employment, but little is known about whether this assumption holds. We use a 2019 state-contingent survey of 11, 000 Danish women linked to administrative data to compare pre-birth beliefs to realized outcomes. Mothers accurately anticipate long-run return to work but systematically overestimate how soon it will occur. Miscalibration stems from two belief errors—about partner leave and own labor supply—which interact and persist even among second-time mothers. |
| Keywords: | Children, employment expectations, administrative data |
| JEL: | D31 D84 E24 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–07–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kucebi:2507 |
| By: | Jose Maria Barrero; Nicholas Bloom; Kathryn Bonney; Cory L. Breaux; Cathy Buffington; Steven J. Davis; Lucia S. Foster; Brian McKenzie; Keith Savage; Cristina Tello-Trillo |
| Abstract: | Timely business-level measures of work from home (WFH) are scarce for the U.S. economy. We review prior survey-based efforts to quantify the incidence and character of WFH and describe new questions that we developed and fielded for the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS). Drawing on more than 150, 000 firm-level responses to the BTOS, we obtain four main findings. First, nearly a third of businesses have employees who work from home, with tremendous variation across sectors. The share of businesses with WFH employees is nearly ten times larger in the Information sector than in Accommodation and Food Services. Second, employees work from home about 1 day per week, on average, and businesses expect similar WFH levels in five years. Third, feasibility aside, businesses’ largest concern with WFH relates to productivity. Seven percent of businesses find that onsite work is more productive, while two percent find that WFH is more productive. Fourth, there is a low level of tracking and monitoring of WFH activities, with 70% of firms reporting they do not track employee days in the office and 75% reporting they do not monitor employees when they work from home. These lessons serve as a starting point for enhancing WFH-related content in the American Community Survey and other household surveys. |
| JEL: | D13 E24 J22 M54 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33951 |
| By: | Jochmans, Koen |
| Abstract: | This paper is concerned with models for matched worker-firm data in the presence of both worker and firm heterogeneity. We show that models with complementarity and sorting can be nonparametrically identified from short panel data while treating both worker and firm heterogeneity as discrete random effects. This paradigm is different from the framework of Bonhomme, Lamadon and Manresa (2019), where identification results are derived under the assumption that worker effects are random but firm heterogeneity is observed. The latter assumption requires the ability to consistently assign firms to latent clusters, which may be challenging; at a minimum, it demands minimal firm size to grow without bound. Our setup is compatible with many theoretical specifications and our approach is constructive. Our identification results appear to be the first of its kind in the context of matched panel data problems. |
| Keywords: | bipartite graph; nonlinearity; panel data; sorting; unobserved heterogeneity |
| JEL: | C23 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2025–06–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:130607 |
| By: | Belmonte, Alessandro; Ticchi, Davide; Ubaldi, Michele |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether affirmative action policies towards the outsider group may foster a backlash by the insider one. We exploit the unique historical context provided by the legacy of apartheid in democratic South Africa. We found that the completion of the affirmative action legislation increases the support for far-right parties in national elections by 0.2% to 0.3% on average. We documented that this effect is stronger in areas located closer to the territories of the former homelands. We also found that affirmative action changed the voting intentions of the individuals. This effect is primarily driven by increased self-perceived economic insecurity. Finally, we did not find evidence of an effect of the legislation on increased interethnic violence. |
| Keywords: | Affirmative action, ethnic inequality, labor markets, South Africa, voting behavior |
| JEL: | D72 J15 J78 K31 N37 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1626 |
| By: | Waltl, Judith |
| Abstract: | Labour market discrimination based on gender identity remains a significant yet understudied phenomenon. This paper examines the labour market experiences of trans and nonbinary individuals, focusing on how gender transition intersects with career development, institutional support, and labour market access. While traditional labour market research has largely centred on gendered outcomes for cisgender women, this study extends the scope to include gender-diverse individuals, drawing parallels and identifying unique discriminatory mechanisms. Using qualitative interviews, the research explores how participants navigate their gender identity within educational and work environments shaped by cisnormative and binary expectations. The analysis engages with Human Capital Theory, Gender Socialisation Theory, and Discrimination Theory to contextualise the ways in which structural barriers, stigma, and identity-based exclusion impact professional trajectories. Findings indicate that participants often feel forced to prioritise either their gender affirmation or their vocational development, with nonbinary individuals facing particularly severe forms of institutional invisibility and marginalisation. |
| Keywords: | Labour market discrimination, queer economics, trans and nonbinary gender identities, cis-normativity, gender norms |
| JEL: | B54 J71 M54 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:320432 |